Controversy: Detail ON or OFF?

Duke M.

Duke M.

Veteran
I've read a lot of posts on this and other sites from people advising to turn detail off to avoid that halo around high contrast details that screams video.

I was developing two color PP's and also wanted more detail control so I started experimenting.

I shot some printed text that was printed on plain paper with an inkjet printer. Some ink bleed is visible, and actually helps you judge the detail level.

I shot with the detail off, then two slightly different detail ON profiles. I checked the focus after each shot. I did screen captures as BMP files and then crops from approx. the same areas.

Don't confuse halos with anti-aliasing. Square pixels must anti-alias to form smooth curves. Even detail OFF has anti-aliasing.

Download them, and zoom in with photoshop at 100%, 200% and 300% for a closer look. (Your browser won't cut it.) Look at the edges and give me your opinion on three questions:
A) Do they all have the same level of detail? Which one is better?

B) Do they all have the same anti aliasing, or do some have excessive sharpening resulting in halos?

C) Which one has the best balance between details and over sharpening?

___ The pictures ___

DETAIL OFF:
http://lifetimememoryvideos.com/gallery/DetailOffCrop.bmp

DETAIL ON - 1:
http://lifetimememoryvideos.com/gallery/RealColorDetailCrop.bmp

DETAIL ON - 2:
http://lifetimememoryvideos.com/gallery/RealColorDetail3Crop.bmp
___

I'll put the details of the PPs in the PP thread with a link here:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?p=2060716#post2060716
___

If that were the only two settings in the camera I'd agree to turn detail OFF, but there aren't and now I totally disagree.
 
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I did some extensive testing on real-world scenes downtown to get to the bottom of this issue and here's what I discovered:

Detail on results in a more quantizing error in the MPEG encoder. The extra detail puts more load on the CODEC and block artifacts and mosquito noise are higher.

I shot some scenes with foliage in the background and some buildings at 1/4 mile. One of them had a barber shop sign. In the Det On version, the sign was barely readable. In the Det Off version, it was clearly readable after post sharpening to achieve the same level of sharpness that would have been created in-camera with Det On.

I found that post-sharpened video looks substantially better than pre-sharpened. There are far fewer artificacts and you can achieve the same sharp images. This, of course, if you have a better CODEC and an ability to use a higher bitrate for the final encode. For instance, my tests went out to Quicktime PhotoJPEG at quality 97 and were displayed on a 2K projector on a 60 sq ft screen for side by side comparisons.

The pre-sharpened (det on) images showed noticeable mosquito noise around edges of trees. Building clapboard was aliased and muddied.
The post-sharpened version (det off in camera, 0.4 radius, 100 level Unsharp Mask in Premiere) was almost free of mosquito noise, and the clapboard was clearly-defined with very little aliasing. It looked as if a higher recording bitrate were used.

Nowadays, I shoot exclusively with Detail Off. I see no reason to use it. Certainly when shooting a 1956 chart, it does absolutely nothing to affect resolution.

When I shot fireworks earlier this month, I used no detail enhancement, and in Premiere, I was able to apply Unsharp Mask to only the levels above black, selectively, resulting in the cleanest blacks I'd ever seen in fireworks video. Even with the gamma curve on my projector set to 'video' which boosts the shadow levels, the black is still clean. Level can be set to 0-255, so setting it to 1 means it sharpens RGB values 1 and above, but leaves pure black alone. I use a radius of 0.4 for Blu-ray and amount of 100 for a really crisp look without halos.

All sharpening should be done in post when you're shooting to a lossy format like MPEG. It's going to result in far superior image quality.
 
As I said I initially agreed totally with the premise that Detail should be OFF. However, my initial testing seems to be that I am getting some extra detail out of these two PPs. I'm especially fond of RLCOLDET, the last one.

But no PP is perfect for all uses. I do need to test it more in low light, high movement and a dozen other situations to see if macro blocking or mosquito noise does occur. Fireworks is about as extreme a situation as you're going to get.

I also want to test it with the Nanoflash. That will give me an even more robust codec and greater color data. There may be some situations the PP is only good with the Nano. The tests with Detail OFF the Nano is better with scenes of sparks, waves, grasslands, etc.

The thing about the Nano is that HD-SDI bypasses both the codec and filtering. These PPs may be pure garbage for the Nano since noise isn't filtered. Part of this idea is to capture cleaner, better images.

Even with Detail OFF RLCOLDET gives a very nice balance of colors. And in that PP I have detail level set to -15 where -18 is essentially off with Wh Limit and Blk Limit at +75 seems to keep out mosquito noise.

But yes, testing is needed. I'm hoping that if a few people try it many more situations can be covered in a short period of time.
 
Here's a side by side comparison with an extreme crop at sized at 300%, 200% and100% in a lossless format for some good old fashioned pixel peeping.

Just looking at these the RLCOLDET on the left shows the ink bleeds better, might have even a little less noticeable anti-aliasing and the solid area above the "E" has less noise.

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I do find it interesting that the EX1 is able to see right down into the pores of the paper at 3' away. My XH-A1 was never that detailed.
 

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I like detail off for shooting movies.

But sometimes I do want a video look. For the documentary I just did my landscape shots pop a bit more with the sharpening on. I use BBC's detail settings though:

Level: 0
Frequency: +30
Crispening: -45

All others at 0. V DTL Creation at Y.

This is suppose to maximizing sharpness without forming halos/other artifacts. I found it on the BBC data sheet when one of their tech's tested out the EX1 a few years ago.
 
I had a problem with Detail On when there was subject movement. Using Tom Roper's work as a base, I was using detail settings that made a stationary subject look great. Amazing detail and clarity.

Then I shot a scene of bare tree branches against a solid blue sky: lots of little subject detail. The wind was making the branches move back and forth. When the branches stopped moving (at the end of the arc) the detail would pop on, then go away as the branches swayed in the opposite direction. Very noticeable and very ugly.

I'm not technically sophisticated enough to know the cause. I assumed it was the camera's inability to do the sharpening math quickly enough. Whatever the cause, I don't use in-camera detail anymore.

Pete
 
Doug Jensen's Vortex Media EX1 field guide has a PP that sets the detail to -10. His PP doesn't change the stock settings much, but leaves a nice picture. It works for me.
 
Duke, those two examples are lit differently, making them hard to compare.

In general, anything that increases the texture detail before compression, puts more stress on the compressor and results in more block artifacts/mosquito noise. It is less destructive to add the sharpening during the edit phase, because you can bump up the compression bitrate when you make the final output stream. The camera can't bump up it's rate when you add sharpening/detail/crispening. The last item increases grain/texture of surfaces when set to negative numbers, I found through experimentation.

I found I got more true detail, with no pre-sharpening and all sharpening done in the edit stage. Details look better when they're not obliterated by macroblocks.
 
After almost 3 years experimenting, I'm now prone to agree with Basspig - set detail to off on my EX1, and do sharpening in post as needed. One thing I'm still experimenting with: the Unsharp mask vs. Sharpen FX'es (I'm using Vegas, but I assume they're both available in Premiere as well).

Basspig?
 
As I use detail OFF, that was what I was wondering, what do you Basspig and Piotr sharpen with in post?

OFF gives me a much cleaner image, detail, even if it's low and combined with different values of frecuency and such, still looks artificial to me...
 
Iudex said:
As I use detail OFF, that was what I was wondering, what do you Basspig and Piotr sharpen with in post?

OFF gives me a much cleaner image, detail, even if it's low and combined with different values of frecuency and such, still looks artificial to me...
Click to expand...

@Iudex: Basspig does "The post-sharpened version (det off in camera), 0.4 radius, 100 level Unsharp Mask in Premiere"

@Basspig, its not different lighting the different PPs have different color and gamma settings which shouldn't affect resolution. I find that Cine3 has a broader DR than Cine4 and the color settings of this PP move the color over to the center of the scope.

I'll try to test the PP this weekend, and if the Detail ON doesn't hold up I'll just turn the detail off and use these color settings.

The picture profile thread needs updating. I've tried making spread sheets, but Gez is that time consuming and difficult to transfer to a thread. Also it seem like some people tried to put EX3 settings as for an EX1, which doesn't always work.
 
moldcad said:
After almost 3 years experimenting, I'm now prone to agree with Basspig - set detail to off on my EX1, and do sharpening in post as needed. One thing I'm still experimenting with: the Unsharp mask vs. Sharpen FX'es (I'm using Vegas, but I assume they're both available in Premiere as well).

Basspig?
Click to expand...


I use Unsharp mask (Adobe Premiere CS3), because it offers control over the Radius, as well as the Amount and Level of sharpening.
The standard sharpen filter is too much and the edge detail is too thick.

I recommend 0.4 radius for 1080P video and an amount of 100. If dealing with night scenes, maybe a level slightly above 0, but no more than 3, as it starts to negate the sharpening over much of the low contrast details.


It's important to compare 'apples to apples', hence any test shots comparing detail settings should be done with the same PP and lighting. I find CINE1 has the most dynamic range, as it starts the knee earlier in the luma curve.

While Detail is a nice feature, I don't recommend it when scenery is rich in high frequency details, as it will reduce the encoding quality and force the CODEC to compromise on quantizing quality.
 
I have bought a used ex1 a few months ago but I never had the time to test it seriously (when hired I'm usually given a z5 or z7). Now I'm leaving for a trip with my camera and I'm going to shoot some location scouting footage for a documentary project. I did try some PPs and I have found that:
-the camera is more noisy than I would like (especially in non contrasty areas, not necessarily underexposed).
-I seem to like a bit more the footage shot with detail on and with a shutter of 120.
Said that I have to say that I only checked the clips on my 15.4" macbok pro, which is not 1920x1080 but 1680 x 1050 and is far from having a broadcast quality monitor.
The PP that I use is a mix of the ones posted here and there in the web:

Matrix: Cinema
Level 0
Phase -5
R-G +75
R-B 0
G-R -18
G-B -32
B-R -27
B-G +13
CC: off
White: 5600
Detail: on
Level: -12
Frequency +30
Crispening +30 (All the rest at 0)
Skin Tone Detail: off
Gamma: Level 0, Cine 1 (4 in low light)
Black: 0
Black Gamma: 0
Low Key sat: 0

Do you think that watching what I shoot on another monitor would change my feelings about it?
I know that I'm going tweak the footage in post (with blacks and black gamma at 0 I always crush the blacks in Color since the image comes out of the camera pretty flat) so sooner or later I'l have to get the right monitor but right now i have to decide whether shooting with Detail on or off and really don't know what to do.
Thanks for any suggestion

pietro
 
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It may be just my impression, but to me it seems that Cinema Matrix *looks* noisier. It may be that the colors have less saturation and hence contrast, and the eye has more of a chance to notice granularity in the mid/quartertones.
I used to use Cinema matrix only for the purplish skies it renders. But the other drawbacks (muted reds, low contrast) seem to negate that.

About monitors, I can safely say that watching on a display that isn't a 1:1 pixel to pixel relationship with the original footage will exaggerate grain. Also, LCDs have a tendency to make things look harsher. And the gamma response of the LCD matters too. Just changing the gamma curve (like on some TVs) in the menu can dramaticly reduce grain and banding in quartertones by allocating more digital step values to those regions.

My best look is on a deep color projector. There, EX footage really shines and is right up there with the best of Hollywood's Blu-ray discs.
 
Thanks Mark,

I'll try with the same PP with matrix switched to Hisat and detail off.

EDIT: tried quickly, it seems to look better. As for monitors, I realize that I cannot rely on mine. I notice a big difference in noise even playing the same prores clip rendered from color with Quicktime and Mpeg Streamclip (cleaner)
 
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